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Today Chevrolet announced the fleet of monitored Volts on the road since its December 2010 launch has crossed the half-billion mile mark for EV miles.

The Volt is an “extended-range electric vehicle” that works – for the most part – like an all-electric car as long as the battery has sufficient charge, and the trick is to keep it more-often in EV mode to prevent the gas generator from kicking on.

General Motors reported it had sold 61,390 Volts in the U.S. as of May, and the plug-in gas-electric car with still the highest EPA rated range of 38 all-electric miles is on average hitting this range-estimate target.

The half-billion mile threshold however was crossed by only 47,000-plus Volt owners who have agreed to anonymous monitoring via GM’s telematics system, OnStar. This means the actual number is well above a half-billion, but GM has no estimate on that.

GM also says it’s monitoring a fleet of 300 in California and 15 percent have averaged better than 40 miles EV range.

“The fact that most of the folks who purchased the Volt at launch are still enjoying EV range performance on target with when they took delivery is testament to the attention to detail our team paid to delivering on our promise of most people driving all electrically most of the time,” said Pam Fletcher, Chevrolet Volt executive chief engineer.

Other facts are that 63 percent of Volt owners are doing their overall driving in EV mode. And, they’re averaging 970 miles between fill-ups.

These number averages according to GM’s Manager, Electrification Technology Communications, Kevin M. Kelly, are not for the 300 in the limited study, but again, they’re for the “more than 47,000 owners who have agreed to provide their usage data through OnStar.”

In an independent study done between July and December 2013 by the Department of Energy’s EV Project (managed by Idaho National Labs) found Volt drivers who participated in 1,198,114 vehicle trips saw 974,692, or 81.4 percent completed without gasoline.

For people with questions, today at 3 p.m. EST GM will hold a discussion with Bill Wallace, Director of Battery Systems Engineering for the Chevrolet Volt on its Facebook page.

“The Volt continues to attract new buyers to Chevrolet with 69 percent of Volt buyers new to GM,” said GM. “The Toyota Prius is the most frequently traded-in vehicle for a Volt.”